In company A, headphone design and development was coordinated, as visualised in figure 8, across seven stages. The development task was defined as a process that applied future anticipatory thinking on the audiophile consumer’s expectations of a company A headphone product.
Figure 8 Stage of Company A’s Product Development Process
In company A the headphone development process was used for coordinating two different development perspectives:
1. New headphone design projects,
2. Incremental improvements to the standard design of existing headphone product offerings.
Development Stage:
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This case explores the latter development task; incremental improvements to the standard design of existing headphone product offerings.
The internal and external subsystem headphone design aspects were addressed by the activities, as visualised in figure 9, comprising the first four stages of the development process.
These four stages of activities represented the compilation and consolidation of the different activities, assumed by company A, requiring completion to develop the external and internal subsystem design requirements of an engineered headphone’s design to be complementary to the audiophile users professional music creation use scenarios.
Figure 9 Activities informing internal and external subsystem headphone design considerations
Through these defined stages of activities, the developmental intentions of each stage were enabled and go/ no go decisions, informing movement within and between stages, could be made.
Unlike new product development projects, which required completion of all activities in each stage’s, improvement projects targeted specific activities deemed by the project manager as relevant to implement an improvement. The nature of any improvement project revealed the subsystem focus of an improvement. The specific activities requiring
Development Stage:
Stage1: Stage2: Stage3: Stage4:
Activities ivities:
attention were subsequently identified relative to the subsystem focus of the improvement project.
In company A, improvement projects were conducted by multi-disciplinary improvement teams. The activities requiring attention to implement a subsystem improvement defined the development skillsets required of improvement team members. As visualised in figure 10, the improvement team for improvement projects typically comprised a product engineering manager, a marketing manager, an accounts manager, an R&D engineer, a product engineer, a mechanical engineer, a purchasing manager and a manufacturing engineer.
Figure 10 Relative Timing of Improvement team Member Inclusion within PDP stages
The product engineering manager oversaw all headphone improvement projects in company A.
The project manager held dialogue with “would –be” team members to identify improvement opportunities.
Customer services create monthly reports that summarised per product segment, specific concerns reported through their call centre. These reports are submitted to the marketing manager. The product engineering manager conducted monthly meetings with the marketing manager to identify headphone improvement opportunities from the detail presented within the customer service report.
Additionally, the product engineering manager held weekly meetings with R&D engineers to discuss, amongst other things, new insights and opportunities for implementing improvements across platform of headphone offerings.
Development Stage:
Product Engineering Manager Marketing Manager Accounts Manager R& D Engineer Product Engineer Mechanical engineer Purchasing manager Mechanical engineer Purchasing manager Mechanical engineer Manufacturing Engineer
Stage1: Stage2: Stage3: Stage4:
Design Team Voice:
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Finally, the product engineering manager also held weekly meetings with mechanical and manufacturing engineers to discuss operational activities. During discussions, the identification of inefficiencies (cost and technologies for example) offered insights that revealed other opportunities for improvement.
“Close integration and constructive interaction between our teams – from R&D and manufacturing to marketing, sales and many other departments – form the basis of reviewing the product segment portfolio here.“PEC1
Improvements were implement as informed by the activities comprising the first four development stages. Each stage had a defined purpose that coordinated the focus of dialogue typical of each stage.
5.2.1 Development Process Considerations of Headphone Improvements
Within stage 1, the business concept phase, the product engineering manager conducted dialogue with the marketing manager, focusing discussion on the company’s established assumptions of headphone design requirements of the professional audiophile user. Dialogue focused on the adequacy of the company A headphone offering. Adequacy was assessed relative to reported challenges of the existing headphone standard design (collated through analysis of customer service helpline information) or potential opportunities to incorporate new features (technological advancement or cost savings) as standard features of the company A headphone offering.
Informed by discussions with the marketing manager as well as insights from regular meetings with other company A staff, the product engineering manager may initiate an improvement project. An improvement project, if initiated, started with a “rough business case”. The rough business case detailed subsystem design challenges and or opportunities defining the need for changes to specific subsystems parts of the company A’s standard headphone design. Finally, the product engineering manager would discuss the specific requirements of the improvement project with an accounts manager and requests a “cost estimate” for the “specified improvement project requirements”. The request for a cost estimate typically brought stage 1 to a close.
At the beginning of stage 2, the requirements analysis phase, the project manager would assemble the improvement team deemed to possess the skillset required to address the improvement project requirements emerging from stage 1.
During the requirements analysis phase, the project manager would call a meeting with the entire improvement team. The meeting enabled the project manager present the nature of the improvement project and allocate development responsibilities to improvement team members. Product engineers were tasked with identifying an external headphone architecture that would enable compatible interface with the human ear and high frequency audio device. Mechanical engineers were tasked with identifying a preliminary design for the internal configuration of sound reproducing parts that fit within the constraints of the chosen earpiece style. Depending on the nature of the improvement, R&D engineers may be included to explore inclusion of design alternatives to standard part designs. Finally, the purchasing manager was tasked with creating a preliminary purchasing proposal. The preliminary purchasing proposal identified externally procured headphone part dependencies, constraining external and internal subsystem part improvements. The preliminary purchasing proposal brought stage 2 to a close.
During stage 3, the concept phase, the product engineering manager and the mechanical engineer, reflected upon in-house capabilities and capacities of manufacturing locations. The mechanical engineer was tasked with creating a concept implementation proposal that detailed alternative make or buy situations for external and internal subsystem parts. Finally, the purchasing manager was tasked with creating an updated purchasing proposal, bringing stage 3 to a close.
During stage 4, the development phase, coordinated discussion occurred between the product engineering manager, the mechanical engineer and a manufacturing engineer. Discussion focused on conducting review of documents relating to the developed headphone (component drawings and compliance certification for example) and the detailed specification of the improvements to the headphone subsystem’s design. Additionally, test results reviewing samples from manufacturing processes in proposed production locations were collated and the complementarity of the sound reproduced relative to defined use scenarios verified.
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Improvements in the complementarity of a headphones standard design were realised through a focus that implemented changes to the design of external or internal subsystem parts. Headphone design considerations typical of each subsystem aspect are presented in the following subsections.